Category: Blog

There was a darkness on the Office Playlist this week. Black Hands is a chilling true-crime podcast that re-negotiates our relationship with picture perfect New Zealand. And while Slowdive’s first album in 23 years has a black cover, it’s music that will restore and nourish your soul.

Once you’ve punched in the final full-stop in your article, or pressed the stop button on your podcast recording, know that there’s more in that story. Creating engaging content should be core to your communications and or marketing strategy – but driving that content further should be just as important.

People are gathering around voice assistants like Google Home and Amazon Alexa to listen to podcasts like some sort of old-timey radio hour. Podcasts are being listened to in ever-increasing numbers – even McDonalds has one called ‘The Sauce’. And it’s not uncommon to pass people in the street who are listening to their phones like a transistor radio.

The Written & Recorded office hums to the sound of podcasts and music. Once a week we’ll highlight our favourite new podcast and album. This week the oldest man in podcasting presents Harry’s Last Stand and we enter the less-than-virtuous circle of Arcade Fire’s ‘Everything Now’.

From fairy tales to film, literature to theatre, journalism to marketing – the art of story-telling has the ability to change hearts and minds. We’ve been telling stories for centuries to understand the world around us and explain the world to each other. But what makes a great story?

Barnaby Joyce has bowed out from the role of Deputy Prime Minister and no-one is surprised. His affair with former staffer Vicki Campion created reverberations around the nation, with calls to have him sacked for breaching ministerial standards. And after three weeks of relentless media coverage which crudely displayed Mr Joyce’s private life – who could forget the indelicate puns like ‘a bundle of Joyce’ – Australians can finally move on. But there’s a lesson to be learnt here for content makers.

No doubt his speechwriter had worked hard to present the State Government’s contribution to literature in a good light, along with a few details on other policies that may be loosely related to words, books or education. But this was not the audience for that speech.

The M Pavilion in Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Gardens was overflowing with writers, readers and the 21 shortlisted authors. Full of cheese, wine and a wicked sense of fun inspired by the vibrant host Candy Bowers, they just wanted to know who was going to win.